Mary the Jewess (ca. second century CE): spiritual alchemy and the kerotakis=Κερωτάκης, Δίβιος ή Τριβικός.

 (The Way of Toabey)

Mary the Jewess (ca. second century CE): spiritual alchemy and the kerotakis=Κερωτάκης, Δίβιος ή Τριβικός.

Victor. Arturo. Cabello. Reyes

''But of all the Jewish authors mentioned by Zosimos, none is referred to as frequently or with greater respect than Maria the Jewess.''

(Shannon Grimes)

"The One becomes Two, the Two becomes Three, and from the Third the One becomes the Fourth."

(Axiom of Mary the Jewess)

The alchemical tradition inherited by Mary the Jewess takes up the concept of Chimie, a current term for alchemy, derived from late Coptic-Islamic sources that survive from lines and currents of Greco-Egyptian sources of "esoteric spirituality".

There are three female figures of essential importance in Alexandrian alchemy=Mary the Prophetess or the Jewess, Theosobei and Cleopatra called the Coptic.

Mary is not only the Jewess but also a Prophetess, who reveals direct messages from God and from an empirical and practical alchemy.

He is part of a select group of 'artisans of the sacred stone' who worked in the Egyptian temples or House of Life, according to their different 'priestly ranks and levels'; connoisseurs of the highest and most sacred metallurgical theurgy... hieratic and divine. (1)

The ancient Egyptian alchemical tradition admits women into the process of alchemical teachings.

"One is the Whole and through it the Whole and in it the All, and if it does not contain the Whole it is nothing".

Let us remember that Zosimus, in his Treatise = (Apparatus and Furnaces = Συσκευές και φούρνοι), dedicates to his spiritual sister Theosobeia a large alchemical volume in 28 Books.

(Treatise on the Letter Omega= (Πραγματεία για το γράμμα Ωμέγα)

''Like Maria and other alchemists, Zosimos seems to have had an acute sense of being in touch with God, in his case through dreams and visions''. (2)

We can say that it is alchemy, the Path of Life and the Spiritual Path towards the ascension and purity of the inner path within the laboratory and crucible of the human dual nature= (Inner Visit to Terrae Rectifying Invenies Occultumm Lapidem).

It seems, therefore, that the symbolism of Zosimus exposes a thousand-year-old Egyptian Templar tradition..."Zosimus testifies to the existence of an earlier Hermetic alchemy that has not come down to us". (3)

Now, in general terms, it is a secret tradition expounded by means of a rigorous arcane discipline of a 'magical' and theurgical nature, comprised among a wide network of correspondences and analogies that are mutually complementary.

Mary was also considered extremely important to the history and legends of alchemy in general.

It is curious that E.O. von Lippman considers and identifies her as the sister of Moses=(Miriam) and Olympiodorus quotes Mary as saying: "Do not touch him with your hands; you are not of Abraham's race; you are not of our race."

''The first and most influencial (alchemist)is Maria the Jewess (c.a.second century CE), who is quoted extensively by Zosimo's and other alchemists, though none of her original texts survive.'' (4)

For this reason, it is the origin of the -hiera techne = sacred technique of the mystery tradition in the ancient Temples.

Undoubtedly, the celestial wisdom of the Karoi (correct astrological moment; in alchemical operation = kairikai baphai of angelic origin. (5)

On the other hand, the Jungian scholar Von Franz argues, Isis founds alchemy by giving in sexual intercourse = [unio mystica], with the angel Amnael, the secret of Magnum Opus = Chimie.

''Angeli peccatores illecebras detexerum, aurum, argentum et opera eorum tradiderunt...''(6)

(From Idolatry, IX, D)

On the other hand, the Egyptian secret sciences are part of a very ancient tradition of the artisans of the golden stone [Olympiodorus calls it = Chrysokolla = Χρυσοκόλα = Golden Stone], and the experimental practices of priests and theorists of alchemy.

"Now, my son, you know the mystery that is the Widow's elixir." (Egyptian Alchemical Recipe)

"Nature enjoys nature, nature fertilizes nature, and nature overcomes nature".

In addition, there are ancient accounts where it is indicated that the wisdom of Mary the Jewess comes from the Egyptian temples = Temple of Ptah, Hermopolis, as well as from the Wizard Ostanese, according to J. Doresse.

But not only that, there were favorable historical conditions in Egypt for the fusion and adequate transmission of ideas and thoughts of a syncretic-spiritual nature, incorporating representative elements of a cosmology-cosmogony of alchemical conception of the universe.

"One is the All, through him the All, in him the All".

(Zosimus of Panopolis: Ajmin, Upper Egypt: lived around 300 AD)

In any case, it must also be recognized that it is a spiritual tradition and a thousand-year-old Primordial Tradition in synthesis that is subsequently nourished by the vast syncretism of Alexandrian, Hermetic, Gnostic, Christian, Neoplatonic, Neo-Pythagorean, Jewish, Arab and Byzantine ideas and doctrinal elements.

''Pseudo-Demokritos refers to his fellow-alchemists as 'fellow-prophets', meaning 'fellow interpreters of things which the gods usually keep hidden', and this title reminds us of one of the most famous alchemists from Roman Egypt, Maria the Jewess''. (7)

For Mary the Jewess, the alchemical process brings together the union of male-female polarization in combinations of substances and processes of a sexual nature. It's the art of angels!

"Combine, male and female, and you will get what you are looking for."

(#8)

However, it is the alchemy of Mary the Jewess, an ancestral form received and assimilated in its theurgical form of metallurgical spiritualized objectively and subjectively at the same time, emanating from the ancient tradition of the Egyptian Temple.

''Indeed, it is only by looking into the deep continuities between the Egyptian-Hermetic tradition and the theurgic and hieratic Neoplatonic traditions that one begins to fathom the authentic origins of the western alchemical traditions.'' (9)

It is also known that Mary the Jewess is considered by many to be a strange alchemist named Mary Prophetess (traditionally called Moses' sister?).

Consequently, he is credited with the invention of various alchemical apparatuses and technical instruments of considerable alchemical value and his famous = Bain-Marie.

''Mary the Jewess is also credited with the invention of the water-bath- which is still known in France as the bain-marie- and of the apparatus called the kerotakis that figures prominently in Greek alchemical writings''. (10)

For the Greek alchemists there were about 80 or more kinds of alchemical laboratory apparatus, some of which persisted in their present 'modifications'.

In the Musaeum Hermeticum of 1625, Hermes the Egyptian stands next to Mary the Jewess in an honorary position, according to Antoine Faivré. (11)

''The most important of these was called kerotakis, which was the name applied by the ancients to the artist's palette.'' (12)

''The kerotakis, to which much importance is attached in the Greek writings, was a closed vessel in which thin leaves of copper and other metals could be exposed to the action of various vapours, including notably that of mercury...''. (13)

He is also credited with the 'creation of the dibikos or tribikos' = Κερωτάκης, Δίβιος ή Τριβικός.

The tribikos is a still with three tubes and three receivers for condensing distilled vapours.

''Marie a décrit beaucoup d'appareils, non destinés á la destillation des aux; Mais a donné beaucop de figures de kérotakis et d'appareils de fourneaux''. (14)

It is extremely important to know the true matter of the philosophical stone and the physical-spiritual matter of alchemical transmutation which is the Fire of the Philosophers.

There is a path or sacred way to fabricate the Great Secret of the Philosophers, the stone and the Universal Medicine that can be achieved in perfection and constant purification by collecting and grouping the celestial and solar forces of the Sons of the Golden Head.

Mary the Jewess (ca. second century CE): spiritual alchemy and the kerotakis=Κερωτάκης, Δίβιος ή Τριβικός.

Victor. Arturo. Cabello. Reyes

General Bibliography:

Mary the Jewess in: Viridarium Chymicum, Stolcius, 1624 and in: Michael Maier, Symbola Aureae Mensae Duodecim Nationum, Maier, 1617.

1. Shannon Grimes, Becoming Gold, pp. 72-73.

2. P.G. Maxwell-Stuart, The Chemical Choir, A History of Alchemy, p.41.

3. Jean Doresse, The Egyptian Hermeticism, p.94.

4. Shannon Grimes, Becoming Gold, p.157.

5. Marie-Louise von Franz, Alchemy, p.63.

6. On Idolatry, IX, D in Berthelot.

7. P.G. Maxwell-Stuart, The Chemical Choir, A History of Alchemy, p.35.

8. Raphael Patai, The Jewish Alchemists.

9. Aaron Cheak, The Perfect Black: Egypt and Alchemy, p.46.

10. E. J. Holmyard, Alchemy, p.49.

11. Antoine Faivre, The Eternal Hermes, p.136.

12. F. Sherwood Taylor, The Alchemists, pp. 45-46.

13. John Read, Prelude to Chemistry, An Outline of Alchemy, p.15.

14. Marcelin Berthelot, Introduction A L'Etude de la Chimie des Anciens et du Moyen Age, p.192.